move, I’ll part with you,” says I, “it does beat all, how you keep actin’
to-night; haint it as hard for me as it is for you? do you think it is
any comfort for me to lay here and hear it?” says I, “that is jest the
way with you men, you haint no more patience than nothin’ in the world,
you was young once yourself.”
“Throw that in my face agin will you? what if I _wuz_! Oh do hear him go
on,” says he shakin’ his fist. “‘Curb oh curb thy bosom’s pain,’ if I was
out there my young feller, I would give you a pain you couldn’t curb so
easy, though it might not be in your bosom.”
Says I “Josiah Allen, you have showed more wickedness to-night, than I
thought you had in you;” says I “would you like to have your pastur, and
Deacon Dobbs, and sister Graves hear your revengeful threats? if you was
layin’ helpless on a sick bed would you be throwin’ your arms about, and
shakin’ your fist in that way? it scares me to think a pardner of mine
should keep actin’ as you have,” says I “you have fell 25 cents in my
estimation to-night.”
“Wall,” says he, “what comfort is there in his prowlin’ round here,
makin’ two old folks lay all night in perfect agony?”
“It haint much after midnight, and if it was,” says I, in a deep and
majestic tone. “Do you calculate, Josiah Allen to go through life without
any trouble? if you do you will find yourself mistaken,” says I. “Do be
still.”
“I _won’t_ be still Samantha.”
Just then he begun a new piece, durin’ which the akordeun sounded the
most meloncholly and cast down it had yet, and his voice was solemn, and
affectin’. I never thought much of Shakespeare Bobbet. He is about Thomas
Jefferson’s age, his moustache is if possible thinner than his’en, should
say whiter, only that is a impossibility. He is jest the age when he
wants to be older, and when folks are willin’ he should, for you don’t
want to call him Mr. Bobbet and to call him “bub” as you always have, he
takes as a deadly insult. He thinks he is in love with Tirzah Ann, which
is jest as bad as long as it lasts as if he was; jest as painful to him
and to her. As I said he sung these words in a slow and affectin’ manner.
When I think of thee, thou lovely dame,
I feel so weak and overcame,
That tears would burst from my eye-lid,
Did not my stern manhood forbid;
For Tirzah Ann,
I am a meloncholly man.
I scorn my looks, what are fur hats
To such a wretch; or silk cravats;
My feelin’s prey to such extents,
Victuals are of no consequence.
Oh Tirzah Ann,
I am a meloncholly man.
As _he_ waited on you from spellin’ school,
My anguish spurned all curb and rule,
My manhood cried, “be calm! forbear!”
Else I should have tore out my hair;
For Tirzah Ann,
I was a meloncholly man.
As I walked behind, he little knew
What danger did his steps pursue;
I had no dagger to unsheath,
But fiercely did I grate my teeth;
For Tirzah Ann,
I was a meloncholly man.
I’m wastin’ slow, my last year’s vests
Hang loose on me; my nightly rests
Are thin as gauze, and thoughts of you,
Gashes ’em wildly through and through,
Oh Tirzah Ann,
I am a meloncholly man.
My heart is in such a burning state,
I feel it soon must conflagrate;
But ere I go to be a ghost,
What bliss--could’st thou tell me thou dost--
Sweet Tirzah Ann--
Think on this meloncholly man.
He didn’t sing but one more piece after this. I don’t remember the words
for it was a long piece. Josiah insists that it was as long as Milton’s
Paradise Lost.
Says I, “don’t be a fool Josiah, you never read it.”
“I have hefted the book,” says he, “and know the size of it, and I know
it was as long if not longer.”
Says I agin, in a cool collected manner, “don’t be a fool Josiah, there
wasn’t more than 25 or 30 verses at the outside.” That was when we was
talkin’ it over to the breakfast table this mornin’, but I confess it
did seem awful long there in the dead of the night; though I wouldn’t
encourage Josiah by sayin’ so, he loves the last word now, and I don’t
know what he would be if I encouraged him in it. I can’t remember the
words, as I said, but the chorus of each verse was
Oh! I languish for thee, Oh! I languish for thee, wherever that I be,
Oh! Oh! Oh! I am languishin’ for thee, I am languishin’ for thee.
As I said I never set much store by Shakespeare Bobbet, but truly
everybody has their strong pints; there was quavers put in there into
them “Oh’s” that never can be put in agin by anybody. Even Josiah lay
motionless listenin’ to ’em in a kind of awe. Jest then we heard Thomas
Jefferson speakin’ out of the winder overhead.
“My musical young friend, haven’t you languished enough for one night?
Because if you have, father and mother and I, bein’ kept awake by other
serenaders the forepart of the night, will love to excuse you, will thank
you for your labers in our behalf, and love to bid you good evenin’,
Tirzah Ann bein’ fast asleep in the other end of the house. But don’t let
me hurry you Shakespeare, my dear young friend, if you haint languished
enough, you keep right on languishin’. I hope I haint hard hearted enough
to deny a young man and neighbor the privilege of languishin’.”
I heard a sound of footsteps under the winder, followed seemin’ly
instantaneously by the rattlin’ of the board fence at the extremity of
the garden. Judgin’ from the sound, he must have got over the ground at a
rate seldom equaled and never outdone.
A button was found under the winder in the mornin’, lost off we suppose
by the impassioned beats of a too ardent heart, and a too vehement pair
of lungs, exercised too much by the boldness and variety of the quavers
durin’ the last tune. That button and a few locks of Malta fur, is all we
have left to remind us of our sufferin’s.
[Illustration]
4th OF JULY IN JONESVILLE.
A few days before the 4th Betsey Bobbet come into oure house in the
mornin’ and says she,
“Have you heard the news?”
“No,” says I pretty brief, for I was jest puttin’ in the ingrediences to
a six quart pan loaf of fruit cake, and on them occasions I want my mind
cool and unruffled.
“Aspire Todd is goin’ to deliver the oration,” says she.
“Aspire Todd! Who’s he?” says I cooly.
“Josiah Allen’s wife,” says she, “have you forgotten the sweet poem that
thrilled us so in the Jonesville Gimlet a few weeks since?”
“I haint been thrilled by no poem,” says I with an almost icy face
pourin’ in my melted butter.
“Then it must be that you have never seen it, I have it in my port-money
and I will read it to you,” says she, not heedin’ the dark froun
gatherin’ on my eye-brow, and she begun to read,
A questioning sail sent over the Mystic Sea.
BY PROF. ASPIRE TODD.
So the majestic thunder-bolt of feeling,
Out of our inner lives, our unseen beings flow,
Vague dreams revealing.
Oh, is it so? Alas! or no,
How be it, Ah! how so?
Is matter going to rule the deathless mind?
What is matter? Is it indeed so?
Oh, truths combined;
Do the Magaloi theoi still tower to and fro?
How do they move? How flow?
Monstrous, aeriform, phantoms sublime,
Come leer at me, and Cadmian teeth my soul gnaw,
Through chiliasms of time;
Transcendentaly and remorslessly gnaw;
By what agency? Is it a law?
Perish the vacueus in huge immensities;
Hurl the broad thunder-bolt of feeling free,
The vision dies;
So lulls the bellowing surf, upon the mystic sea,
Is it indeed so? Alas! Oh me.
“How this sweet poem appeals to tender hearts,” says Betsey as she
concluded it.
“How it appeals to tender heads,” says I almost coldly, measurin’ out my
cinnamon in a big spoon.
“Josiah Allen’s wife, has not your soul never sailed on that mystical sea
he so sweetly depictures?”
“Not an inch,” says I firmly, “not an inch.”
“Have you not never been haunted by sorrowful phantoms you would fain
bury in oblivion’s sea?”
“Not once,” says I “not a phantom,” and says I as I measured out my
raisons and English currants, “if folks would work as I do, from mornin’
till night and earn thier honest bread by the sweat of thier eyebrows,
they wouldn’t be tore so much by phantoms as they be; it is your
shiftless creeters that are always bein’ gored by phantoms, and havin’
’em leer at ’em,” says I with my spectacles bent keenly on her, “Why
don’t they leer at me Betsey Bobbet?”
“Because you are intellectually blind, you cannot see.”
“I see enough,” says I, “I see more’n I want to a good deal of the time.”
In a dignified silence, I then chopped my raisons impressively and Betsey
started for home.
The celebration was held in Josiah’s sugar bush, and I meant to be on the
ground in good season, for when I have jobs I dread, I am for takin’ ’em
by the forelock and grapplin’ with ’em at once. But as I was bakin’ my
last plum puddin’ and chicken pie, the folks begun to stream by, I hadn’t
no idee thier could be so many folks scairt up in Jonesville. I thought
to myself, I wonder if they’d flock out so to a prayer-meetin’. But they
kep’ a comin’, all kind of folks, in all kinds of vehicles, from a 6
horse team, down to peacible lookin’ men and wimmen drawin’ baby wagons,
with two babies in most of ’em.
There was a stagin’ built in most the middle of the grove for the
leadin’ men of Jonesville, and some board seats all round it for the
folks to set on. As Josiah owned the ground, he was invited to set upon
the stagin’.
And as I glanced up at that man every little while through the day, I
thought proudly to myself, there may be nobler lookin’ men there, and men
that would weigh more by the steelyards, but there haint a whiter shirt
bosom there than Josiah Allen’s.
When I got there the seats was full. Betsey Bobbet was jest ahead of me,
and says she,
“Come on, Josiah Allen’s wife, let us have a seat, we can obtain one,
if we push and scramble enough.” As I looked upon her carryin’ out her
doctrine, pushin’ and scramblin’, I thought to myself, if I didn’t know
to the contrary, I never should take you for a modest dignifier and
retirer. And as I beheld her breathin’ hard, and her elboes wildly wavin’
in the air, pushin’ in between native men of Jonesville and foreigners,
I again methought, I don’t believe you would be so sweaty and out of
breath a votin’ as you be now. And as I watched her labors and efforts
I continued to methink sadly, how strange! how strange! that retirin’
modesty and delicacy can stand so firm in some situations, and then be so
quickly overthrowed in others seemin’ly not near so hard.
[Illustration: THE FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION]
Betsey finally got a seat, wedged in between a large healthy Irishman and
a native constable, and she motioned for me to come on, at the same time
pokin’ a respectable old gentleman in front of her, with her parasol, to
make him move along. Says I,
“I may as well die one way as another, as well expier a standin’ up, as
in tryin’ to get a seat,” and I quietly leaned up against a hemlock tree
and composed myself for events. A man heard my words which I spoke about
½ to myself, and says he,
“Take my seat, mum.”
Says I “No! keep it.”
Says he “I am jest comin’ down with a fit, I have got to leave the ground
instantly.”
Says I “In them cases I will.” So I sot. His tongue seemed thick, and his
breath smelt of brandy, but I make no insinuations.
About noon Prof. Aspire Todd walked slowly on to the ground, arm in arm
with the editor of the Gimlet, old Mr. Bobbet follerin’ him closely
behind. Countin’ 2 eyes to a person, and the exceptions are triflin’,
there was 700 and fifty or sixty eyes aimed at him as he walked through
the crowd. He was dressed in a new shinin’ suit of black, his complexion
was deathly, his hair was jest turned from white, and was combed straight
back from his forward and hung down long, over his coat coller. He had a
big moustache, about the color of his hair, only bearin’ a little more on
the sandy, and a couple of pale blue eyes with a pair of spectacles over
’em.
As he walked upon the stagin’ behind the Editer of the Gimlet, the band
struck up, “Hail to the chief, that in trihump advances.” As soon as it
stopped playin’ the Editer of the Gimlet come forward and said--
“Fellow citizens of Jonesville and the adjacent and surroundin’ world, I
have the honor and privilege of presenting to you the orator of the day,
the noble and eloquent Prof. Aspire Todd Esq.”
Prof. Todd came forward and made a low bow.
“Bretheren and sisters of Jonesville,” says he; “Friends and patrons of
Liberty, in risin’ upon this aeroter, I have signified by that act, a
desire and a willingness to address you. I am not here fellow and sister
citizens, to outrage your feelings by triflin’ remarks, I am not here
male patrons of liberty to lead your noble, and you female patrons your
tender footsteps into the flowery fields of useless rhetorical eloquence;
I am here noble brothers and sisters of Jonesville not in a mephitical
manner, and I trust not in a mentorial, but to present a few plain
truths in a plain manner, for your consideration. My friends we are in
one sense but tennifolious blossoms of life; or, if you will pardon the
tergiversation, we are all but mineratin’ tennirosters, hovering upon an
illinition of mythoplasm.”
“Jess so,” cried old Bobbet, who was settin’ on a bench right under the
speaker’s stand, with his fat red face lookin’ up shinin’ with pride and
enthusiasm, (and the brandy he had took to honor the old Revolutionary
heroes) “Jess so! so we be!”
Prof. Todd looked down on him in a troubled kind of a way for a minute,
and then went on--
“Noble inhabitants of Jonesville and the rural districts, we are
actinolitic bein’s, each of our souls, like the acalphia, radiates a
circle of prismatic tentacles, showing the divine irridescent essence of
which composed are they.”
“Jes’ so,” shouted old Bobbet louder than before. “Jes’ so, so they did,
I’ve always said so.”
“And if we are content to moulder out our existence, like fibrous,
veticulated, polypus, clingin’ to the crustaceous courts of custom, if we
cling not like soarin’ prytanes to the phantoms that lower thier sceptres
down through the murky waves of retrogression, endeavorin’ to lure us
upward in the scale of progressive bein’--in what degree do we differ
from the accolphia?”
“Jes’ so,” says old Bobbet, lookin’ defiantly round on the audience.
“There he has got you, how can they?”
Prof. Todd stopped again, looked doun on Bobbet, and put his hand to his
brow in a wild kind of a way, for a minute, and then went on.
“Let us, noble brethren in the broad field of humanity, let us rise, let
us prove that mind is superior to matter, let us prove ourselves superior
to the acalphia--”
“Yes, less,” says old Bobbet, “less prove ourselves.”
“Let us shame the actinia,” said the Professor.
“Yes, jes’ so!” shouted old Bobbet, “less shame him!” and in his
enthusiasm he got up and hollered agin, “Less shame him.”
Prof. Todd stopped stone still, his face red as blood, he drinked several
swallows of water, and then he whispered a few words to the Editer of the
Gimlet who immegiately come forward and said--
“Although it is a scene of touchin’ beauty, to see an old gentleman, and
a bald-headed one, so in love with eloquence, and to give such remarkable
proofs of it at his age, still as it is the request of my young
friend--and I am proud to say ‘my young friend’ in regard to one gifted
in so remarkable a degree--at his request I beg to be permitted to hint,
that if the bald-headed old gentleman in the linen coat can conceal his
admiration, and supress his applause, he will confer a favor on my gifted
young friend, and through him indirectly to Jonesville, to America, and
the great cause of humanity, throughout the length and breadth of the
country.”
Here he made a low bow and sot down. Prof. Todd continued his piece
without any more interruption, till most the last, he wanted the public
of Jonesville to “dround black care in the deep waters of oblivion, mind
not her mad throes of dissolvin’ bein’, but let the deep waters cover her
black head, and march onward.”
Then the old gentleman forgot himself, and sprang up and hollered--
“Yes! dround the black cat, hold her head under! What if she is mad!
don’t mind her screamin’! there will be cats enough left in the world! do
as he tells you to! less dround her!”
Prof. Todd finished in a few words, and set doun lookin’ gloomy and
morbid.
The next speaker was a large, healthy lookin’ man, who talked aginst
wimmin’s rights. He didn’t bring up no new arguments, but talked as
they all do who oppose ’em. About wimmin outragin’ and destroyin’ thier
modesty, by bein’ in the same street with a man once every ’lection day.
And he talked grand about how woman’s weakness arroused all the shivelry
and nobility of a man’s nature, and how it was his dearest and most
sacred privilege and happiness, to protect her from even a summer’s
breeze, if it dared to blow too hard on her beloved and delicate form.
Why, before he had got half through, a stranger from another world who
had never seen a woman, wouldn’t have had the least idee that they was
made of clay as man was, but would have thought they was made of some
thin gauze, liable at any minute to blow away, and that man’s only
employment was to stand and watch ’em, for fear some zephyr would get
the advantage of ’em. He called wimmin every pretty name he could think
of, and says he, wavin’ his hands in the air in a rapped eloquence, and
beatin’ his breast in the same he cried,
“Shall these weak, helpless angels, these seraphines, these sweet,
delicate, cooin’ doves--whose only mission it is to sweetly coo--these
rainbows, these posys vote? Never! my bretheren, never will we put such
hardships upon ’em.”
As he sot down, he professed himself and all the rest of his sect ready
to die at any time, and in any way wimmin should say, rather than they
should vote, or have any other hardship. Betsey Bobbet wept aloud, she
was so delighted with it.
Jest as they concluded thier frantic cheers over his speech, a thin,
feeble lookin’ woman come by where I stood, drawin’ a large baby wagon
with two children in it, seemin’ly a two-year-old, and a yearlin’. She
also carried one in her arms who was lame. She looked so beat out and so
ready to drop down, that I got up and give her my seat, and says I,
“You look ready to fall down.”
“Am I too late,” says she, “to hear my husband’s speech?”
“Is that your husband,” says I, “that is laughin’ and talkin’ with that
pretty girl?”
“Yes,” says she with a sort of troubled look.
“Well, he jest finished.”
She looked ready to cry, and as I took the lame child from her breakin’
arms, says I--
“This is too hard for you.”
“I wouldn’t mind gettin’ ’em on to the ground,” says she, “I haint had
only three miles to bring ’em, that wouldn’t be much if it wasn’t for the
work I had to do before I come.”
“What did you have to do?” says I in pityin’ accents.
“Oh, I had to fix him off, brush his clothes and black his boots, and
then I did up all my work, and then I had to go out and make six length
of fence--the cattle broke into the corn yesterday, and he was busy
writin’ his piece, and couldn’t fix it--and then I had to mend his coat,”
glancin’ at a thick coat in the wagon. “He didn’t know but he should want
it to wear home, he knew he was goin’ to make a great effort, and thought
he should sweat some, he is dreadful easy to take cold,” says she with a
worried look.
“Why didn’t he help you along with the children?” says I, in a indignant
tone.
“Oh, he said he had to make a great exertion to-day, and he wanted to
have his mind free and clear; he is one of the kind that can’t have their
minds trammeled.”
“It would do him good to be trammeled--hard!” says I, lookin’ darkly on
him.
“Don’t speak so of him,” says she beseechingly.
“Are you satisfied with his doin’s?” says I, lookin’ keenly at her.
“Oh yes,” says she in a trustin’ tone, liftin’ her care-worn, weary
countenance to mine, “oh yes, you don’t know how beautiful he can _talk_.”
I said no more, for it is a invincible rule of my life, not to make no
disturbances in families. But I give the yearlin’ pretty near a pound of
candy on the spot, and the glances I cast on _him_ and the pretty girl he
was a flirtin’ with, was cold enough to freeze ’em both into a male and
female glazier.
Lawyer Nugent now got up and said, “That whereas the speaking was
foreclosed, or in other words finished, he motioned they should adjourn
to the dinner table, as the fair committee had signified by a snowy
signal that fluttered like a dove of promise above waves of emerald, or
in plainer terms by a _towel_, that dinner was forthcoming; whereas he
motioned that they should adjourn _sine die_ to the aforesaid table.”
Old Mr. Bobbet, and the Editer of the Gimlet seconded the motion at the
same time. And Shakespeare Bobbet wantin’ to do somethin’ in a public
way, got up and motioned “that they proceed to the table on the usial
road,” but there wasn’t any other way--only to wade the creek--that
didn’t seem to be necessary, but nobody took no notice of it, so it was
jest as well.
[Illustration: WHAT HAPPENED AT THE DINNER]
The dinner was good, but there was an awful crowd round the tables, and I
was glad I wore my old lawn dress, for the children was thick, and so was
bread and butter, and sass of all kinds, and jell tarts. And I hain’t no
shirk, I jest plunged right into the heat of the battle, as you may say,
waitin’ on the children, and the spots on my dress skirt would have been
too much for anybody that couldn’t count 40. To say nothin’ about old Mr.
Peedick steppin’ through the back breadth, and Betsey Bobbet ketchin’
holt of me, and rippin’ it off the waist as much as ½ a yard. And then a
horse started up behind the widder Tubbs, as I was bendin’ down in front
of her to get somethin’ out of a basket, and she weighin’ above 200, was
precipitated onto my straw bonnet, jammin’ it down almost as flat as it
was before it was braided. I came off pretty well in other respects, only
about two yards of the ruflin’ of my black silk cape was tore by two boys
who got to fightin’ behind me, and bein’ blind with rage tore it off,
thinkin’ they had got holt of each other’s hair. There was a considerable
number of toasts drank, I can’t remember all of ’em, but among ’em was
these,
“The eagle of Liberty; May her quills lengthen till the proud shadow of
her wings shall sweetly rest on every land.”
“The 4th of July; the star which our old four fathers tore from the
ferocious mane of the howling lion of England, and set in the calm and
majestic brow of _E pluribus unum_. May it gleam with brighter and
brighter radience, till the lion shall hide his dazzled eyes, and cower
like a stricken lamb at the feet of _E pluribus_.”
“Dr. Bombus our respected citizen; how he tenderly ushers us into a world
of trial, and professionally and scientifically assists us out of it. May
his troubles be as small as his morphine powders, and the circle of his
joys as well rounded as his pills.”
“The press of Jonesville, the Gimlet, and the Augur; May they perforate
the crust of ignorance with a gigantic hole, through which blushing
civilization can sweetly peer into futurity.”
“The fair sect: first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of
their countrymen. May them that love the aforesaid, flourish like a green
bayberry tree, whereas may them that hate them, dwindle down as near to
nothin’ as the bonnets of the aforesaid.”
That piece of toast was Lawer Nugent’s.
Prof. Aspire Todd’s was the last.
“The Luminous Lamp of Progression, whose sciatherical shadows falling
upon earthly matter, not promoting sciolism, or Siccity, may it illumine
humanity as it tardigradely floats from matter’s aquius wastes, to minds
majestic and apyrous climes.”
Shakspeare Bobbet then rose up, and says he,
“Before we leave this joyous grove I have a poem which I was requested
to read to you, it is dedicated to the Goddess of Liberty, and was
transposed by another female, who modestly desires her name not to
be mentioned any further than the initials B. B.” He then read the
follerin’ spirited lines:
Before all causes East or West,
I love the Liberty cause the best,
I love its cheerful greetings;
No joys on earth can e’er be found,
Like those pure pleasures that abound,
At Jonesville Liberty meetings.
To all the world I give my hand,
My heart is with that noble band,
The Jonesville Liberty brothers;
May every land preserved be,
Each clime that dotes on Liberty--
Jonesville before all others.
The picknick never broke up till most night, I went home a little while
before it broke, and if there was a beat out creeter, I was; I jest
dropped my delapidated form into a rockin’ chair with a red cushien and
says I,
“There needn’t be another word said, I will never go to another 4th as
long as my name is Josiah Allen’s wife.”
“You haint patriotic enough Samantha,” says Josiah, “you don’t love your
country.”